REVIEWSReviews may refer to elements exclusive to a previous impression

Prick of the Spindle: "Krech documents time and place as abutting in regions that don’t require the artificial assistance of illumination, and are instead elucidated with the controlled description and restrained imagery expected of a poet charting unexplored territory. Undoubtedly, however, Krech’s greatest achievement in this collection is his ability to create what he refers to in 'After Atget” as “nostalgia for a place we’ve never been.'"

The Time Garden: "...[T]hese pieces give the simple pleasure of quick visits to unfamiliar, exotic, even strange, places. We feel 'nostalgia for a place/ we’ve never been' ('After Atget') on many pages. ... I can’t tell, in these poems, whether the familiar conquers the strange or vice versa. The balance between how foreign the people and places are and how, at the same time, identical to us they arehow there and here are so different, so much the samethat balancing swerves about everywhere in the poems, which are busy 'questioning the relative consistency / of impermanence."

Poesia: "...[Y]ou will taste, smell and feel the poetry of place in a travelogue of metaphors that take you from Burma and eventually west across the Mediterranean into Egypt. In simple, stark yet descriptive language you feel the destination of each poem, but perhaps what you really experience is a journey."

Bathtub Gin: "In the locales depicted in Richard Krech’s Rumors of Electricity, '...the time goes slowly here. / each shop you must stop / & drink tea.' An apt image for this collection of seventeen short poems, which may be few of words, but expansive in their descriptive power. A snapshot poetics in which the collection serves as a view into different cultures and climates, the poems are the remains of travels, like a scrapbook of words. ... Active in the poetry scene (and beyond) of 1960s Berkeley, Krech took a nearly 30 year hiatus from poetry until just a few years ago. His recent work, including Rumors, shows a poet with a maturity of voice, but with the same intensity of language one sees in younger poets. In addition, the design of the book, from the letterpress cover to the effective use of white space on each page, complements the simple and elegant poetry within. In reviewing a book, I try to balance praise and suggestions for improvement. With Krech's Rumors, I am hard-pressed to do the latter and simply say this is a book to definitely add to your collection."

Hugh Fox: "I've known Krech for almost forty years and I've never read a bad line in his work. Here in Rumors of Electricity he is the perfect guide into cultures and worlds that have been totally distorted by recent political events."

Blind Man's Rainbow: "...the poems inside are certainly something new for those of us who read poetry regularly. The collection has a fresh feel for that reason, complimenting its classy layout."

OTHERA Pick of the Month by Small Press Review in their January-February 2007 issue.